High Ferritin Level

I am lucky I caught it early enough

MICHELLE McDONAGH

MY HEALTH EXPERIENCE: THERESE O'CONNOR:  Haemochromatosis can be fatal if it is not treated

ABOUT 10 YEARS ago, one of my sisters mentioned in passing that my dad’s sister in Canada had been diagnosed with haemochromatosis, an iron overload disorder. She was told by her doctor to mention it to her family members as it is a genetic disease which can run through families. I wrote it in my diary at the time and forgot all about it for years.

I was at my doctor for some other reason in 2008 when I mentioned the fact that my aunt had haemochromatosis. He gave me a blood test and rang me back a few days later to tell me my iron levels were very high. He brought me back in for a genetic test, a simple pin prick, and I got the results back fairly quickly. I was diagnosed with haemochromatosis.

I was a bit taken aback at the time as I had no symptoms apart from tiredness. When I looked it up, I found out that haemochromatosis can be fatal if not treated and it is associated with diabetes, liver and heart disease, and lots of other problems. This frightened me.

My three sisters and mother had to have the genetic test. One of my sisters, Radie, was also diagnosed with haemochromatosis a year later and my mum was found to be a carrier. Looking back since my own diagnosis, I think my dad probably had the condition. He was always complaining of chronic fatigue and pain in his joints which he put down to hard work.

Dad died of multi-organ failure in 1998 when he was in his early 70s. It’s such a shame because it really looks like he had haemochromatosis and if we had known, he could have been treated. If one parent has haemochromatosis and the other is a carrier, on average half of the children will develop the condition and the other half will be carriers. My dad probably had it and two of his four daughters have it.

Before I was diagnosed, I was always tired, which I put down to everyday living. I was 40 years of age, my eldest child was 18 and I had no babies, so I shouldn’t have been feeling that tired. I was always taking vitamin C supplements and other pick-me-ups, not realising that they were the worst things I could take because vitamin C aids the absorption of iron and my body was already absorbing too much iron. I was told to cut those out straight away.

The level of iron in my blood was so high that I had to go to St James’s Hospital to have a pint of blood taken off every week for three months, just like giving a blood donation every week. Having the blood removed was tiring in itself, but I still felt better after it. I felt more of a zest, more alive and I wasn’t falling asleep all the time.

prediabetes with high ferritin

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